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Monday, 7 November 2016

Digital Self Harm

This
evening I have been studying Chapter 6 of danah boyd’s book on social media use
‘It’s Complicated, the social lives of networked teens’, and came across the
following term: “digital self-harm”.

The chapter
deals with cyberbullying and the forms it takes online, especially among young
American teenagers. It really demonstrates how activity adults may describe as
bullying don’t necessarily match with what teenagers perceive to be bullying
activity.

In terms of
digital self-harm, boyd references Formspring a question and answer website,
which allows users to anonymously ask other users questions, if the question is
answered the question and answer is then published online.

Despite
offensive questions boyd explains that some young people would still respond,
even though if they hadn’t responded the question would have never been
published online.

danah boyd ‘It’s
Complicated, the social lives of networked teens’ (2014) comments “some teens
were engaging in acts of digital self-harm to attract attention, support and
validation”. Though in a different context, I could actually relate to this!

Via my
social media channels, especially Twitter, during the course of the US Election
campaign I have been massively vocal in my disdain for Presidential candidate
Donald Trump, replying to other users tweets within what I would call “unsafe
for Liberals” spaces online.

For example,
I would reply with anti-Trump rhetoric to accounts followed primarily by Trump
supporters. I am always met with hatred and abusive tweets, but I have been
doing this for months, despite the abuse I get I still do it, knowing the
response I will get.

In a way
this is digital self-harm, I am standing there (metaphorically) as an online
punching bag ready to receive the abuse. Why? Well as boyd says, firstly for
validation, as I would get a lot of praise from like-minded individuals for the
points I would make and it would increase traffic to my social networks.

But
secondly, for entertainment, as the views of the Pro-Trump crowd are so laughable.
So in a way I am welcoming attacks and abuse – digital self-harm.

This is similar
to what boyd describes in the book, in that teenagers crave the validation and
attention they would get if their friends or others would see them receiving
abuse online.

But as
mentioned earlier and as boyd touches on this activity would not be felt to be
bullying by teenagers but their parents may have a very different view on their
online activity.

This comes
down to the definition of bullying. In her book boyd cites Swedish author Dan Olweus
who in the 1970’s defined bullying as consisting of three elements being
aggression, repetition and imbalance in power. He argues that these three
elements must be present for something to be considered bullying.

In this
case the Formspring example or my example of the Trump tweets wouldn’t be seen
as bullying, particularly because of the power element.

By posting
anti-Trump rhetoric in response to pro-Trump accounts I know what I expect and
I give as good as I get! So there is no imbalance in power, just like the
example from boyd’s book, the teenager decided to reply and therefore publish
the Formspring content, it was the teenager’s choice, there was no imbalance of
power.

To
conclude, from boyd’s chapter on bullying the definition of it and what
constitutes bullying online is far from a black and white landscape.